Harper

07/11/2014

(I'm just going to start blogging again, I think, without any fanfare or anything. Okay? I feel very rusty; it's going to take me awhile to get warmed up. Anyway.)

Jax Aubrey is going through a rough time. His father is dead, leaving him orphaned, and rather than being left with relatives, he's been given into the custody of Riley, a boy he hardly knows--a boy not much older than himself. He's just counting the days until he's allowed to go and live with his aunt and cousins; just keeping his head down in his new school and trying to survive.

Until he wakes up one morning, completely alone in the world.

He panics, believing an apocalypse has come. He breaks into a store and loads up for survival, stashing his supplies back at the house and falling asleep while trying to figure out what to do next.

When he wakes up the next morning, however, everything's back to normal.

With the help of Riley, he learns that he's one of a very few people who live through an eighth day every week; a day which the rest of the world is completely unaware of. Within that world, Riley has a sacred, sworn duty to protect a young woman upon whose safety the entire world hangs--our world, and the world of the Eighth Day. If Jax ever wants to figure out who he is and where he belongs, he's going to have to help and trust Riley.

So. There is a LOT going on in this book. In the beginning it had a real MIDNIGHTERS (Scott Westerfeld) feel to it, but it quickly becomes its own thing. It's got a lot of Arthurian and Welsh legend woven into it. When I read that in the summary I couldn't imagine how that would work but it does. I am always a sucker for a tale that includes these elements, so I was really excited to see where the book took them.

Salerni does not disappoint. This is a very original take on the Arthurian mythos, and is not another "This is Arthur, King of the Britons, come back to live among us" tale. The characters are good--flawed and doubting and very human. Jax is very much a regular boy thrust into extraordinary circumstances, but he doesn't suddenly become a hero with mad skills of any kind. There's a lot about his struggles to find his identity and his home that I think will resonate strongly with readers.

The end sets it up for a sequel, and I very much look forward to reading it.

01/11/2012

(this isn't out yet, but because it comes out Tuesday (January 17th 2012) I decided to skip the "looking ahead" part of the title. just in case you were wondering. you probably weren't. carry on.)

Let me begin this review by saying: this is the first book to land on my 2013 Newbery shortlist.

THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN is based on the true story of a gorilla named Ivan who lived in a mall in Washington State and was a tourist attraction, along with some other animals. IVAN is narrated by Ivan himself, mostly as a series of thoughts - the only dialogue comes in when Ivan either hears humans speaking or speaks to another animal himself. And while this is not my favorite way for an author to write a book, it works perfectly for this one and I wouldn't have it changed for anything in the world.

At the beginning of the story, Ivan is bored but mostly content with the world of the mall, where he is a star attraction. He has friends (Bob the stray dog; Stella the elephant) and frequent visitors (his keeper/owner, Mack, and Julia, daughter of the mall's custodian). He eats; he sleeps; he draws though what comes out of his pencils and crayons never matches what's in his head. Things are a little up and a little down but mostly status quo at the mall...until Ruby arrives.

Ruby's a baby elephant, purchased from a terrible circus, who grew up in the wild. Humans killed her family and sold her to the circus, who chained her to the floor most of the day, until finally she ended up at the mall. Stella looks after her like a mother, but Ruby cannot settle, cannot fully adjust to everything that's been taken from her. And then Stella gets sick. And one night, Stella extracts a promise from Ivan - that after she's gone, Ivan will find Ruby a safe place. A "life different than mine."

It will take everything Ivan is, every ounce of will he has, to keep his promise to Stella.

I've said before that I don't really love animal stories, and I don't. It takes something really special for me to love an animal story, and this book has spades of special. The language is exquisite. I read it to myself but I found myself wishing Molly were just a little older so I could read it aloud to her. I wanted a classful of kids to read it aloud to. Sometimes I just read a line or two aloud to myself so I could hear the words ring in my ears.

This is a book of love and hope and promises; of pain and fear and sorrow; of found family. This is a book that will gently turn your heart inside out and back again. This is a book that you may feel compelled to hug when you have finished it.

This is a book I want you to know about, and I want you to read it, and I hope that you love it as much as I did.

12/19/2011

I am firmly, devotedly a reader and lover of printed books, and Molly seems to be following right along. Not that she doesn't love the computer and my iPhone and TV - she totally does - but she LOVES printed books. However she also loves audiobooks, and has started to develop a taste for some of the ones available for the iPhone that read the book to you while moving through a series of pictures. That of course has led to our downloading some book-related apps--and because she is also a hardcore FANCY NANCY fan (what pink-loving girl isn't?), when I saw the FANCY NANCY DRESS UP app in the App Store, I knew I had to download it for her.

It's a TON of fun for 99 cents!

You start out with Nancy's wardrobe (which you can see in the screenshot). When you click on an item of clothing or accessory, you are taken to several choices in that category. Click on the specific item that you want, and ding! It's on Nancy. The more outrageously you dress her, the more she urges you on. You can really pile the stuff on and make her look ridiculous. Molly thinks this is HILARIOUS.

(You can also touch a little palette icon and ding! Nancy is dressed fancily for you - but it's much more fun to do it yourself.)

Then you can place Nancy into one of many different backgrounds. And here's Molly's favorite part: there are all these "stickers" (little things like apples and puppies and room decor) that you can move onto the various backgrounds so you can decorate with them. She likes to absolutely cover the screen with these stickers, which is no small surprise as she also likes to cover our house with her cra--er, treasures.

THEN you can save your pages, and insert them into a little interactive storybook.

HarperCollins has done an amazing job with the Fancy Nancy licensing. As far as I can tell, there isn't any...well, garbage. Games and puzzles; dolls and costumes; and all from the best companies. Molly would love a Fancy Nancy TV show, and if done well (Charlie and Lola is the gold standard for me) I think it could be really wonderful. I hate the overmerchandising of certain characters but Nancy has been rolled out slowly and so well. This app is just the latest in a long string of terrific, thoughtful decisions, and I think it's one of my favorites to date. And Molly - the target audience - would absolutely agree.

12/07/2011

Okay, maybe the post title's a little out of control. I'm guessing you need no explanation for this topic. I'll just get to it, shall I? You will also notice the reviews are much shorter, as I am starting to run out of time. (I'm guessing your kid already has IF I BUILT A CAR by Chris Van Dusen, because you'd have to be in a coma to not understand how nutso I am for Chris Van Dusen, so I'm not even going to mention it here. Much.)

3. CARS GALORE by Peter Stein (with art by Bob Staake, who I LOVE): A rhyming, traffic-filled celebration of every kind of real and made-up car your little car fanatic can possibly come up with.

4. EVERYTHING GOES: ON LAND by Brian Biggs: This crazy awesome book is about a little boy and his dad and their vehicle-filled trip to the big city. Every picture is jam-packed with people and vehicles and animals and numbers and other stuff - there is stuff to look at everywhere, some in close-up. It's like WHERE'S WALDO meets CARS AND TRUCKS AND THINGS THAT GO, on steroids.

5. OTIS AND THE TORNADO by Loren Long: the sequel to my much-beloved OTIS (which I KNOW you already have, right? RIGHT?) finds our sunny little tractor saving his farm friends when a tornado comes out of nowhere.

6. DINOTRUX by Chris Gall: Before dinosaurs roamed the Earth, prehistoric trucks did. (Really! You never learned this in school?) Learn all about things like the Dumplodocus. This book is like crack for truck-and-dinosaur loving kids. Give it to them as a pair with DINOSAUR DIG and watch their little heads explode.

7. THE THREE LITTLE ALIENS AND THE BIG BAD ROBOT by Margaret McNamara: The three little aliens' mom tells them to go out and make their way in the world, which they do - being mindful that they need to watch out for the Big Bad Robot. They go from planet to planet (one is too hot; one too crowded) before setting up homes and preparing to face off with the BBR. The art in this fun retelling is awesome, too.

8. ALONG A LONG ROAD by Frank Viva: In this, the quietest of the books I've chosen by far, a man sets out on a bicycle trip along a long road through many different landscapes. The minimal words and striking, five-color illustrations lend themselves to a reader imagining for themselves many of the stories that might happen along that road.

10/12/2011

When you were here in September, I told you how I went and book-talked your books to four schools, and I told them all that SKELETON CREEK would be perfect for them if they liked scary books, but that I didn't like scary books so I had to put it down after chapter four and couldn't watch any of the videos. And what did you say?

"Melissa, just remember that it's me who wrote them! You've met me. I'm the man behind the curtain. I'm not scary!"

Or something like that.

Okay. I thought, I'm a children's bookseller! I am almost 40 years old. I can read a book designed for ages 12 and up and be just fine. Patrick is really nice. I'll just remember that, and I'll be able to get through the book.

I got to page 135. I skipped all the videos. And I freaked myself out so much I locked myself into the bedroom last night.

DEAR PATRICK I DO NOT LIKE SCARY BOOKS THE END.

If you like scary books, this is a scary book. You may not find it all that scary, if you are a connoisseur of scary books; you may read this and think I am a wimp. I am fully prepared to accept that. I like princesses and ponies. And I can tell you, Patrick Carman is an AWESOME writer. He did exactly what he set out to do: scare the pants off me. (Yes, it is all about me.)

Oh, what's the book about, you ask?

A guy named Will suffers from a horrible, crippling phobia. His doctor sends him off with six other teenage phobia sufferers to Fort Eden, a place meant to help people with this problem. None of the teens know anything about what's going on there...except Will. Will's been sneaking into his doctor's files, and not only knows a lot about his fellow patients, but has a lot of info about Fort Eden itself. When they're deposited there, he disappears into the woods with a backpack full of supplies, determined to observe from the outside and see what's really going on.

The teens are put into weird rooms where they are forced to face their worst fears, and when they emerge from the rooms, they seem to be cured. But of course there's more going on here than that, and Will is determined to get to the bottom of it.

Like Patrick's SKELETON CREEK, TRACKERS, and 3:15 series, DARK EDEN includes a lot of electronic content. You can go take The Fear Test. Also at that page is the awesome trailer, and a link to where you can buy the fully interactive book app. With the app you can read the book, watch videos, look at maps of Fort Eden, and really immerse yourself in the book fully. You all know I am not the biggest fan of e-books, but this one is truly special, and I absolutely appreciate what Patrick is trying to do with it: make it irresistable to teens who might have left reading behind or turning to other things. And it WORKS. He is pretty much a genius at this sort of thing, and he's got a great team working with him.

BUT IT IS STILL TOO SCARY FOR ME. I will wait for the sequel to FLOORS, thank you very much.

01/21/2011

Sarah and I sped through it like madwomen; I got my first blurb on the Indie Next List for it; and then it came out and we sold it. And sold it. And sold it. We handsold that sucker to every teen girl and teen girl's mom that walked through the door, and over the years, we've continued to handsell it (first together, and now apart...sniff). That book was THIRTEEN LITTLE BLUE ENVELOPES by Maureen Johnson, and it remains one of my favorite YA novels ever.

So when the ARC of THE LAST LITTLE BLUE ENVELOPE showed up in the box from my Harper rep, my heart sank more than a little. TLBE was fine on its own. I didn't need to know what had happened to Ginny. I was fine with her story being finished (or unfinished, whatever). Couldn't anyone leave well enough alone? Why did everything have to have a sequel? One would be better off asking, "Why didn't you just trust Maureen?" Turns out finishing Ginny's story is a good thing. Turns out I'm pretty darn happy to have the sequel in the world.

I don't want to say much, because if you haven't read TLBE, you should read that first. You absolutely have to read it first. If you've read it, you can sleep soundly knowing that our Ginny is back and better than ever. There's a new, strange boy in her life (not by her choice), and he's the one who pushes her out on her new adventure. There's an old boy, too, causing problems. There's a possible new friend and a whole new series of trips to take. Turns out you open up THE LAST LITTLE BLUE ENVELOPE and it's like opening the door to an old friend. Thanks, Maureen, for the sequel I didn't know I wanted until I had it.

11/10/2010

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was Look Through My Window by Canadian author Jean Little. I still have an ancient copy, pictured here. The price stamp is 95¢, and the excerpted review line above the cover image is "a book full of people you will like." This is the truth. And it is still one of my favorite books.

Look Through My Window is about a little girl named Emily. Emily wants to write, and Emily wants a friend. Emily is an only child who lives in an apartment in the city. Her aunt gets sick and needs many months to recover, so she and her parents move to an eighteen-room house in the suburbs with her young cousins. And that, so says the first chapter's title, is The Day the World Changed.

There are many reasons I love this book. Here are just a few:

1. Emily moves into the attic room because she wants a poet's garret. In the room, she finds a locked box full of poems that belongs to Kate, who's been using the formerly abandoned house as a place to hide and write. Emily writes poems, too. They are simple but insightful.

If ever I

Did something new

They all would say,

"That's not like you."

I'm always just

The me they see --

Not the real true

Inside me.

2. Of course, Emily and Kate, pictured above, looking ever so much like Kate, are destined to meet. This isn't an easy story of instant friendship, though. In many ways, they are different, and they navigate their uncertainty with caution and care, gradually working their way into discovering the ways in which they are the same.

3. Into Emily's life bursts not only Kate but this wild group of four young cousins, John, James, Ann, and Jean, who are all fully formed characters in their own rights. They make Emily's life infinitely more complicated and stressful, but it doesn't take long for her to realize that the chaos all of these children bring is also kind of awesome.

4. This book has a few wonderful illustrations by Joan Sandin that get all sorts of little details right, from capturing the exact expression you'd imagine on certain characters' faces to depicting familiar and beloved covers of books on bookshelves.

5. A young homesick French woman named Sophie, who barely speaks English, is sent over to help the family by the cranky old lady next door, who of course might turn out to be not really all that cranky.

6. There is a cat in this story named Wilhelmina Shakespeare.

7. Emily evaluates who she wouldn't want to see her new room -- this room with the skylight that takes her breath away, that makes "the room look like Heidi's loft and Sara Crewe's garret" -- with the following standard: "They would not have read the right books. They would not understand."

8. One of the differences between Emily and Kate is religion, and there are some thoughtful conversations about what it means to be Christian and what it means to be Jewish and what it means to be nothing. Possibly because this book was published in 1970 and there wasn't a lot of religious diversity where the book is set, or maybe because she doesn't think she's ever been around any Jews, Emily is surprised to learn that Kate is Jewish, and a mutual friend of theirs is SHOCKED to learn that the cousins are Catholic. (“‘They ARE?' she gasped. 'But they seem just like ordinary children.'") The thoughts and discussions that these characters have about these issues add a nice weight to the story, and I think it's all handled with a lot of sensitivity and honesty for a children's book. Emily and her mom have a long talk about prejudice, and her mom explains that all they can do is "go on being ourselves, I guess. We try to get to know all kinds of people. We fight prejudice when we meet it -- in others or in ourselves." If there is better advice on this issue, I don't think I've ever heard it. "Try to get to know all kinds of people." If everyone did that, the world would be so much damn better.

9. In this book, there is the staging of a play.

10. Emily's dad works a lot, and her mom is home running the show. Her parents' relationship feels natural and real, and her mother is one of my favorite characters. She's harried and crazed and exhausted but warm and understanding and funny and somehow handles the mayhem of the house with a combination of improvisation and good humor.

11. You know what this book is not about? Boys. As in, Emily & Kate never talk about boys. Or even think about boys. They're too busy talking and thinking about writing and friendship and families and religion and pets and kids and books. This book passes the Bechdel Test with glorious, flying colors. (No offense, boys.)

12. Kate's parents figure into the story, too, and they own a bookstore, and they, too, feel like fully rounded characters even though they are in the background for most of the book. One of the most frank and thought-provoking conversations in the book takes place between Kate and her dad. He explains why he's no longer a practicing Jew, and she is full of questions, and he says:

We can't tell you the answers to the big questions, Katharine. "Who are we? Why are we here? Is there a God? Is He concerned about us?" But that is the exciting thing about being a human being. Or one of the exciting things. The questions are always there ... The answers -- ah! ... Those are what life is all about. You find part of an answer -- and it leads to another question. Never does the wonder, the asking, end.

13. Kate's poems don't rhyme and are depicted in a different font and perfectly encapsulate who she is as a character.

14. People say things in this book like "Great Caesar's ghost!" and "Land of liberty, a child with sense!" I've decided to start using these expressions as much as possible.

15. Many moments in this book, as many times as I've read it (and by "many" I mean "MANY"), leave my eyes bright with tears. For their simplicity, for their sweetness, for the way that they get right to the heart of life.

16. Finishing it again today, at age 35, leaves me feeling like I always have, since I was a little girl, and like Emily does here ... In that moment, deep inside herself, she felt the steadfastness of important things. Feeling the steadfastness of important things might be the most important feeling of all. Jean Little, I love you.

It's possible this book is still on the shelf in a library or a used bookstore near you, and there are used copies available online. If I were you, I'd try to find it. To steal a phrase from the book itself, it is “so terribly ordinary -- and so terribly special."

08/13/2010

I could boil this review down to five words: THIS BOOK RULES THE WORLD. or how about THIS BOOK ROCKED MY SOCKS. or GIVE ME THE SEQUEL NOW. or OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG. Any of those, really. I tore through this book today and am now completely obsessed. COMPLETELY. When a publisher puts the kind of push behind a book like HarperCollins has done with this book, it often ends up feeling like smoke and mirrors. This book, however, deserves the massive amount of hype that it has gotten. Have I mentioned that it's awesome? Lorien is a planet three hundred million miles away from Earth. Its entire population was killed by another race (the Mogadorians) - except for nine gifted children and their guardians. The 18 survivors fled to Earth where they have been hiding among us, waiting to grow into their Legacies (special powers that many of the Lorien people possess), fight the Mogadorians, and return to revive their home planet. A two-part charm was put on the children before they left: they can only be killed in a certain order, and because of their link, each instantly knows if one of their kind has been killed. Our protagonist is Number Four, fifteen years old, and at the beginning of the book, he has just learned that Number Three has died. John (his new alias) and his guardian, Henri, flee their current home for a small town in Ohio. They move constantly, changing identities, locations, schools in their ongoing attempt to elude the Mogadorians who followed them to Earth. Their life is one of constant vigilance, and it is a life that "John" has tired of as he has gotten older. At his new school, he clashes immediately with the football star and crushes on the star's ex-girlfriend, which leads to a series of events that threaten to expose him for who he truly is. As his Legacies finally begin to develop, as does his new relationship, he becomes less and less certain that the way he is leading his life is sustainable. And every day, Henri becomes more convinced that the evil they are fleeing is growing closer. This is one of those novels that you can't describe in too much depth because one tiny spoiler could ruin everything. So I can tell you this: it's a long book (440 pages) yet there's not one wasted word. The characters are flawed and believable and familiar in the best of ways. The twists surprised me and the bad guys are both original and scary. And the writing is SO GOOD. Imagine my surprise when I Googled Pittacus Lore and learned that he is two people: a writer named Jobie Hughes..and JAMES FREY. Yes, that James Frey. People are surprising me every day in the world of young adult fiction; today is no different. Like the best of collaborative works, I have no idea where one author begins and the other ends. I am, it must be said, a little desperate for the sequel to I AM NUMBER FOUR. I recommend joining me in my obsession as soon as possible. After all, there are still eleven days left until the release of MOCKINGJAY.

09/23/2008

This is a sweetie pie of a book. A nice book, as I like to say. A book you can hand to a grandmother or a mother or an aunt or the kid themselves and simply say I think you will really like this. There's always enough room in the world for another nice book, and I'm glad this one is here.
Charlotte does not like dogs, but somehow she has ended up caring for Beauregard, the massive Saint Bernard her father has brought home. Her father brings a lot of stuff home that he abandons - hobbies and the like - but Charlotte isn't usually stuck taking care of those things when her father loses interest. But just like always, after a few weeks, her dad has lost all interest in the dog - he forgets to feed him, and never walks him, and never visits him. Begrudgingly Charlotte has begun to do all of these things.
But she doesn't want to, so she plans to get rid of Beauregard. First she tries to give him to Grace, the new girl at school, but that doesn't work. So then she takes him to the shelter and says that she found him. Score! They take him in. That works for awhile, until her dad calls the police to track the dog down and discovers that he's at the shelter. Despite her dad's disinterest, he goes and gets the dog anyway.
Charlotte hopes that this means her dad will take renewed interest in Beauregard, thereby freeing her up from her unwanted duties - but of course this doesn't happen. Charlotte's right back where she started, scheming to free up her time. However, as she continues to try to figure out how to get rid of the dog, something strange starts to happen to her. Could she actually become a dog person? And if she does, what is the best thing for Beauregard?
I love the family in this book - the dad that continually brings piles of crap into the house; the mom with postpartum depression who really needs the dad to help more instead of bringing more crap into the house; the funny toddler brother and the enterint-the-eyerolling-stage teenage sister; and Charlotte herself, sarcastic and pouty and loving and generous. There's also a great subplot where Charlotte helps take care of an elderly shut-in for some extra money; this subplot really fleshes out Charlotte's character and introduces us to her friends in more depth.
I'm not really a dog lover, but this book made me think I could be.
Publisher: Harper
Pub date: March 2009

09/19/2008

(I keep not posting reviews because I think they always have to be longer than this. So instead of not posting them because they're not long enough, I'm just going to post them when they're short anyway.)
What does a family lose when a child is lost? What is stolen from a girl's life when her sister is stolen? Cantor tackles these difficult questions in THE SEPTEMBER SISTERS. Abby's mother has always called Abby and Becky the September Sisters because their birthdays are one day apart, and she acts as if they are best friends. However, this was not actually the case - Abby and Becky fight constantly and Abby carries a lot of resentment for what she feels is preferential treatment of Becky by her parents. When Becky disappears from her bedroom in the middle of the night, Abby feels guilty for not having a better relationship with her sister; even more resentful that despite her absence, Becky is the one getting all the attention; and sorrowful at the loss of her. A relationship with her neighbor's grandson helps Abby to begin to heal even as her family falls apart around her.
No adult content. Pretty depressing. Very nicely written. I thought Cantor did a great job with Abby and her very complex all-over-the-map emotions.